Publications

2016
Working Paper

Cohort Turnover and Operational Performance: The July Phenomenon in Teaching Hospitals

By: Hummy Song, Robert S. Huckman and Jason R. Barro

We consider the impact of cohort turnover—the planned simultaneous exit of a large number of experienced employees and a similarly sized entry of new workers—on operational performance in the context of teaching hospitals. Specifically, we examine the impact of the... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Operations; Hospitals; Productivity; Empirical Operations; Service Delivery; Training; Performance Productivity; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

July 2020
Case

King's College Hospital in Crisis

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

On December 11, 2017, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (King’s), one of London’s leading teaching hospital groups, was put into “special measures” by NHS Improvement (NHSI), the financial regulator of England’s National Health Service (NHS). The future of... View Details

Keywords: Hospitals; Financing; Health Care and Treatment; Financial Condition; Crisis Management; Organizational Structure; Transformation; Strategic Planning; United Kingdom

01 Jan 2020
News

Changes in Quality of Care after Hospital Mergers and Acquisitions

Changes in Quality of Care After Hospital Mergers and Acquisitions

The hospital industry has consolidated substantially during the past two decades and at an accelerated pace since 2010. Multiple studies have shown that hospital mergers have led to higher prices for commercially insured patients, but research about effects on... View Details

January 2013 (Revised February 2013)
Supplement

Shouldice Hospital Limited (B)

By: James Heskett and Roger Hallowell

Keywords: Hospital; Hernia; Surgery; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment

04 Jan 2021
Working Paper Summaries

Hospital Allocation and Racial Disparities in Health Care

Keywords: by Amitabh Chandra, Pragya Kakani, and Adam Sacarny; Health

Article

Transparency as a Solution for the Hospital Capacity Problem

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

COVID dramatically clarified a shortcoming in our great healthcare system, but like everything in the world, it has its shortcomings. What we see through the apex of COVID is that many hospitals in hotspot areas cannot provide an adequate supply of beds. Although the... View Details

Keywords: Hospital Capacity; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Capacity; Planning; Cooperation

April 3, 2020
Article

How Hospitals Can Manage Supply Chain Shortages as Demand Surges

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Gary P. Pisano, Raffaella Sadun and Thomas C. Tsai

The best practices in supply chain and operations management can help health care providers cope with the surge in patients and the supply shortages. They will help them create a comprehensive strategy aimed at both the demand- and supply-side roots of the problem. The... View Details

Keywords: Hospitals; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Supply Chain Management; Operations; Management; Strategy

April 15, 2020
Other Article

Designating Certain Post-Acute Care Facilities As COVID-19 Skilled Care Centers Can Increase Hospital Capacity And Keep Nursing Home Patients Safer

By: Leemore S. Dafny and Steven S. Lee

As the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide continues to grow, many hospitals will need to convert acute care beds into intensive care beds and discharge stable patients to post-acute care settings such as nursing homes. In addition, nursing homes unable to care for... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Nursing Homes; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Safety; Quality

Find at Harvard

2023
Article

Comparison of COVID-19 Hospitalization Costs across Care Pathways: A Patient-level Time-driven Activity-based Costing Analysis in a Brazilian Hospital

By: Ricardo Bertoglio Cardoso, Miriam Allein Zago Marcolino, Milena Soriano Marcolino, Camila Felix Fortis, Leila Beltrami Moreira, Ana Paula Coutinho, Nadine Oliveira Clausell, Junaid Nabi, Robert S. Kaplan, Ana Paula Beck da Silva Etges and Carisi Anne Polanczyk

The COVID-19 pandemic raised awareness of the need to better understand where and how patient-level costs are incurred in health care organizations. This study used time-driven activity-based costing to estimate COVID-19 patient-level hospital costs in a Brazilian... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Health Industry; Brazil

October 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

The Brigham and Women's Hospital Innovation Hub: Driving Internal Innovation

By: Ariel D. Stern and Robert S. Huckman

Keywords: Healthcare; Innovation; Hospital; Health; Health Care

2011
Chapter

Health Care Applications: From Hospitals to Physicians, from Productive Efficiency to Quality Frontiers

By: Jon Chilingerian and H. David Sherman

This chapter focuses on health-care applications of DEA. The paper begins with a brief history of health applications and discusses some of the models and the motivation behind the applications. Using DEA to develop quality frontiers in health services is offered as a... View Details

Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis; Physicians; Hospitals; HMOs; Frontier Analysis; Efficiency; Health Care and Treatment; Performance; Quality

As the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide continues to grow, a number of hospitals will need to convert acute care beds into intensive care beds, and discharge stable patients to post-acute care settings such as nursing homes. In addition, nursing homes unable... View Details

January 2000 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network - The Primary Care Unit

By: V.G. Narayanan, Lisa Brem and Ryan Moore

The Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network needed to gain a better understanding of its unit-of-service costs, which had been rising at a rate of 10% per year. The network's step-down costing system gave only aggregate costing information, and there was some... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Accounting; Cost; Network Effects; Health Industry; Service Industry; Massachusetts

01 Dec 2009
News

The Hospital That Could Cure Health Care

15 Apr 2020
News

Designating Certain Post-Acute Care Facilities As COVID-19 Skilled Care Centers Can Increase Hospital Capacity And Keep Nursing Home Patients Safer

February 24, 2022
Article

Want to Prevent the Next Hospital Bed Crisis? Enlist the SEC

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer

During the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, many U.S. hospitals could not provide enough beds to meet demand. Solving the problem of inadequate capacity is of utmost importance in the “new normal,” which requires recognizing the ongoing need for hospital-based... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19 Pandemic; Hospital Capacity; SEC Regulation; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Performance Capacity; Planning

May 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Newton-Wellesley Hospital

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Natalie Kindred

How will Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH) preserve its private practice tradition while remaining effective and competitive in a healthcare industry demanding increasing integration between physicians and hospitals? This is the decision facing Newton-Wellesley Hospital... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Profit; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Integration; Health Industry; Massachusetts